


Something in the Water

by dearcaspian



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Gore, Multi, Somewhat mild descriptions of a dead body, Temporary Character Death, i know canonically there is one bed in the shop but for fic's sake there's two now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-19 02:57:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14865293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearcaspian/pseuds/dearcaspian
Summary: “Will I be able to find out what’s in the water?” Caspir asks, nervously eyeing the way down.“If you wish,” says the Magician. “You won't like it. Go on now. You have precious little time.”Caspir places one foot on the path, testing its durability under pressure, and falls hard into a patch of mud. When they pick themselves up, they dazedly notice how the pond now lay only a few feet away. The Magician waves up above, a pinprick of shadow on the cliff. Caspir watches them walk away into the mist beyond, alone once more.





	Something in the Water

 

There is something in the water. It floats slowly across the murky surface, undulating back and forth in an unseen current.  A few creatures lay panting along the rim of the pool but avoid rolling too close to the edge. Their feathers are colorless and falling out, mouths cracked from dehydration, yet not a single one dips down to drink.

Caspir can see it from where they stand, overlooking the valley below. The cliff is steep and lined with crumbling rocks clinging weakly to the broken earth along it. From this height every detail below is perfectly visible, almost as if they could reach out and touch the tips of the trees in the distance.  A storm lingers on the horizon, the natural topography of rolling clouds above and rain beneath inverted. The flood pours upwards, streaking across the dark orange sky.

They have been here before, once. The land looks radically different this time around. Where lakes and pools of dancing fish once dotted a wide, grassy terrain rolling with hills and flowers too bright to glance at directly, now resides a sickened version of the dimension Caspir dimly recalls. The air is unnaturally still despite the clouds speeding forward in the distance. No brush of wind sweeps across the plains, and as far as they can see, not a single presence is visible on the dying earth below; except the shape in the water.

It’s a body. Caspir knows this instinctively, knows it without even having to look too closely. Whether it is still alive or deceased remains to be seen. Part of them wants to turn back around and keep running until this wastescape disappears, but they know there is no other choice than to find out.

They take a step, leaning over the cliff’s edge. A handful of pebbles give way at their feet, tumbling and dancing down until the noise is swallowed up.

“You can’t get down that way,” says a voice.

Caspir whirls around, teetering precariously. A figure dressed in torn and faded robes, once resplendent, stands behind them.

“You’ve never been able to get down that way,” says the fox somberly, waving a furred claw at the cliff. “Don’t you know by now?”

They squint up at the Magician. “I don’t remember.”

The great animal sighs, sounding disappointed. “Of course you don’t,” they say. “Here. Let me show you.”

Caspir follows them as they trod across the brittle grass, coming to stop only a short stretch away. The fox gestures in front of them, indicating a previously unnoticed path. The trodden earth is steep and narrow, winding down sharply to the right.

“Will I be able to find out what’s in the water?” they ask, nervously eyeing the treacherous way down.

“If you wish,” says the Magician. “You won’t like it. Go on now. You have precious little time.”

Caspir places one foot on the path, testing its durability under pressure, and falls hard into a patch of mud.

When they pick themselves up, they dazedly notice how the pond now lay only a few feet away. The Magician waves up above, a pinprick of shadow on the cliff. Caspir watches them walk away into the mist beyond, alone once more

The creatures at the water’s edge are dead. As Caspir looks on they disintegrate, feathers melting into mealy muscle into bones and eventually ash, which rose as the bile rises in Caspir’s stomach. Each plant and shriveled flower they pass, hesitantly brushing their fingers against, breaks apart into a hundred separate cool cinders and drifts slowly away on a nonexistent breeze. They leave a trail of expired embers behind them as they walk, every footstep sending up little puffs of blackened grass turned to char.

Finally at the lip of the pond, Caspir falters. It is partial dawning horror at what lies in front of them and half the next line in a play, rehearsed a multitude of instances before this one, multiple choices always aligning along the same forgotten path.

“Asra,” they whisper. “Oh, Asra.”

Their knees give almost instantaneously. They fall at the edge, dark water soaking into their clothing, unable to look at anything but the grey-faced form of their former master bobbing by.

His corpse is rotting. Waterlogged gashes mark his pallid skin, the wounds long since bled dry. Caspir crawls forward, knowing what must happen next, what always happens next.

“Asra,” Caspir cries out. Magic brims instinctively at the surface of their skin, sown of fear. They reach out to touch him, desperate to pull him out of the water as if that might heal what this land had done to him, as if to hold him again might depart some life back into his bones.

His eyes snap open.

_“Caspir.”_ The voice resonates, each syllable elongated as a grating buzz in the back of their head, insistent, jeering. Asra’s body is grinning horribly up at them, limbs moving and contorting in ways they shouldn’t have been able to.

“Caspir,” he calls again, sliding up onto the muddy bank faster than Caspir can backtrack. The name sounds wrong coming from his mouth, mangled somewhere between tongue and teeth. “Why didn’t you save him?”

Caspir stumbles, slipping forwards in the muck. “S-save who?”

“The wandering magician,” the corpse tells her, one arm reaching out. Fingers latch onto their wet sleeve. Caspir yanks back helplessly, only serving to further drag Asra onto land.

“It’s your fault, Caspir,” he sneers. Some of the tainted water sloshes between his teeth and down his chin. “You could have helped him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You let him die, and this place died with him,” Asra’s body hisses. “You’ve destroyed everything here. What have you done?”

They struggle against the grip but his fingers dig welts into their arm as he drags them down into the water. Caspir begins to choke, mud  All the while his eyes bore into Caspir’s with unrelenting ridicule, wide, red, empty.

“What have you done? What have you-”

Caspir wakes with a scream.

The sound fills their lungs and rips from their mouth, taking every ounce of air with it. Blurry eyed and coughing, Caspir scrambles upwards in the darkness, panting wildly for breath. Their chest aches, a sharp knot unfurling into nauseating points of ignition. Hands flail in the open space around them as they struggle to get a sense of their surroundings, but the panic is overwhelming.

Something is moving in the corner. Caspir eyes violently shut almost of their own accord, unable to process anything beyond the lingering shadows of the dream. Another scream builds, echoing outward, haggard this time and more plea than alarm.

“Cas!”

Strong hands take a hold of their shoulders, firmly immobilizing them in place. Caspir fights instinctively against the restraint. Their strength wanes with each weak shove as dizziness overtakes them.

“Let go of me,” they manage to rasp, twisting sideways in sheets they were already tangled up in, but the hands do not move.

“Cas.”

The voice is softer, insistent, a harbor’s edge among the turmoil to anchor on. Familiarity washes over them. All traces of resistance vanish in an instant and Caspir breathes in sharply, slumping forward. The atmosphere feels raw in a way they can’t explain: still split between two realities, one solidifying before them and the other sinking slowly back down into the nothing.

“I’m sorry.” Caspir is hoarse, apology a bare whisper in the dark.

Asra relinquishes his grasp on his apprentice’s shoulders. Eyes still shut, Caspir cannot see his movements, but the sensation of a magic warm and comforting just a short width away is ever present. Fabric rustles. A hand gently touches along Caspir’s face, palm resting on the jawline.

“It’s okay,” he says softly, sincere. “Tell me about this one.”

It was the fifth time in two weeks Caspir had woken in the middle of the night, shouting and oblivious to their surroundings, from the depths of a nightmare. The same scenario plagued them over and over: a dying realm, Asra’s body floating in the water, then that same body telling them they had caused everything to go wrong, a relentless tide of accusations all accompanied by a pair of watchful red eyes. In other dreams those eyes had been floating above them, a flickering, ruby backdrop to the sky. They tended to change position, the one detail diverting from the actions Caspir’s mind had put into place. Up until this particular dream, they had never been looking out from Asra.

“It’s the same thing,” Caspir mumbles, guilty, disheartened. “It’s always the same thing.”

Asra hums in the following quiet, allowing them a moment to recover. His free hand brushes damp, tangled strands of blonde hair off Caspir’s brow. They flinch automatically under the touch, lungs and chest still a bramble of thorns. Asra’s hum drifts off into a frown.

“Cas,” he says for a third time. The name comes as a sigh, breath stirring the air between them. It is more condolence than question, the single syllable concealing a level of affection and melancholy he does not know how to properly express. “Cas. Look at me.”

_“You died.”_  Caspir’s attempted outcry is no more than a feeble sob of protest. They grip the sheets, searching for purchase among the images flickering across the backs of their eyelids. “You died, Asra, in the water. It’s always the same and I’m powerless to do anything against it.”

“Am I dying now? Right here?”

“Of course not, you’re-”

“Cas,” he whispers. The hand falls away from their face. “Open your eyes.”

Caspir does.

There is little change at first. Patches of silver light mark the wooden floor in hazy, elongated shapes as moonlight streams faintly in through the curtains. Shadows swirl in their line of vision and eventually solidify into concrete shapes they could recognize by heart: the ancient trunk in the corner, the small shelf of collected wood carvings, the befeathered traveling hat by the door. Eventually they adjust to the dark. Asra is a familiar shape kneeling on the floor beside them, waiting patiently for any sign of recognition.

“Ah,” he says, slow smile at the corners of his lips. “There you are.”

The last inklings of residual panic flutter away. Caspir searches Asra for fragments of how the dream had marred his body, but his skin is clear and hair as fluffy as they last remembered it. A gaze the color of summer orchids peers steadily back at them.

Asra rises, gently scooting Caspir’s legs over to make room on the side of the cot. Without waiting for an invitation Caspir moves forward into open arms.

“You’re okay,” Asra murmurs, breath stirring Caspir’s hair. “You’re okay.”

He rests his chin on the top of their head, hands warm against their back. Caspir presses their face into the hollow of a collarbone, folding against him as if it were the only thing keeping them moored to the waking world.

“I’m sorry.” The apology tumbles out, tempered by a rising embarrassment. Asra doesn’t answer directly. Instead he draws them closer, trying through a sense of magic and will and sorrow alone to let them know he wasn’t going anywhere.

They stay this way for some time, wrapped in the essence of each other. Eventually Caspir’s shivering subsides. The lingering moments twist perception and memory together until Asra feels as if he has always been holding Caspir like this, a physical personification of an asylum he knew they fiercely needed. They feel small in Asra’s embrace, the spirited way they usually carried themselves reduced to the fluttering of a heartbeat against ribs. Uneven breaths fall to regular echoes of relief, then further to exhales so quiet Asra wonders for a small, absurd moment if they’re breathing at all.

“Caspir,” Asra says, pulling back ever so slightly to brush a kiss against their forehead. “Do you want to move?”

They shake their head, obstinately tightening their hold. Asra laughs, musical and sweet.

“Cas. My darling,” he repeats. “My legs are falling asleep.”

Caspir gives a soft huff. Asra feels the motion against his neck and smiles. He starts to shift away much to Caspir’s chagrin and then the two are separate once more, connected only by a pair of hands.

In the dark he leads them, slipping quietly across the room to the corner. Caspir settles down beside him, nestling once again in beckoning arms. Beneath the blanket they aren’t certain where Asra’s own limbs end and theirs began.

The delusion of Asra’s corpse lingers in the shadows. Caspir shuts their eyes and the dream dissolves to a fallow, forgotten speck in the depths of their mind.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Asra says. “You know that. Right?”

Caspir sighs, what was left of their energy swiftly dissipating. “Mhm.”

“You’re okay, Cas.”

Caspir doesn’t answer. Asra tilts his head, studying them for any sign of movement. Their shoulders rise and fall in a regular rhythm, hand still clutching his in a loosening grip. Asra falls back in satisfied relief.

In the waning light of the moon the magician drifts off, joining Caspir in a realm once again lit by a vivid rush of vibrant color and sound, both of them alive and dancing below unfamiliar stars. That night, it is the only dream to come.


End file.
